This invention relates to a device for holding hollow bodies of electrically conductive material, such as cans made of sheet metal, while they are conveyed through an electrophoretic dip provided with a conveying element which runs through the dip bath and successively seizes the open ends of the individual hollow bodies by their outwardly flanged edge and temporarily holds them.
West German patent application P 33 04 940.8 described a process for coating hollow bodies which are open at one end, in which the individual hollow bodies are washed, coated both outside and inside with a lacquer, then dried, optionally printed and again dried. The hollow bodies, for example cans, are passed in a continuous process through an electro-dip bath such that they are quickly completely flooded with the bath liquid so as to coat them electrophoretically with a wet film. After a sufficient period of coating, the hollow bodies are again lifted from the dip bath and the dip bath liquid contained in them is poured out. During this treatment, the flanged open end of the hollow bodies, i.e., cans, should be gripped, such that the holding device simultaneously serves as a contact electrode, to which an inner counter-electrode, located at a spacing from the wall of the hollow body, is assigned.
While P 33 04 940.8 discloses in detail the process for the electrophoretic coating of hollow bodies which are sealed at one end, for example cans, details of the holding device to be used for carrying out this process are not disclosed therein.